BOTH PARENTS DUTY TO SUPPORT THEIR CHILDREN

When it comes to child support in California, there’s still a lot of confusion as to which parent is legally responsible for providing support to their minor children. The answer is: you both are.

California Family Code § 3900 covers the duty of parents to support their minor children. It reads in pertinent part: “…the father and mother of a minor child have an equal responsibility to support their child in the manner suitable to the child’s circumstances.”

And even though a man is not a child’s biological parent, he may be required to support the child under the doctrine of parentage by estoppel, which requires: (1) that the child have accepted a putative father’s express or implied representation that he is the child’s father and (2) that the representation continue for a sufficient time to establish a parent-child relationship and frustrate the opportunity of discovering the child’s biological father. Clevenger v. Clevenger, 189 Cal.App.2d 658, 11 Cal.Rptr.2d 861 (2003). Although all the parentage-by-estoppel cases have involved men, the doctrine would seem equally applicable to women.